Chicago and 99 Days and counting until Saipan!

Why hello there!

Hope all is going well with those of you who read this! We just wanted to share some photos with you of our weekend to Chicago. Just like last year, this year we joined 11 young life staff/volunteers from our area on a 3 day quick trip to Chicago for a Young Life conferance. It was a blast of a weekend except for the 2 hour delay home and driving over snowqualmie pass at 10pm through a white out of snow and getting home at 1:30 am, and then teaching the next morning!

Besides that is was a ton of fun. The speakers we wonderful and the shopping was great! We spent Saturday afternoon touring the magnificant mile and visiting one of my favorite stores, H & M.

Other then that we are busy with the last month or so of school and now getting ready to move. Only 99 day to go until we are "Leavin on a jet plane..." We are now in the process of deciding what we want down there and deciding when we should send it. We are having to start shipping things in the next few weeks if we want it to be there when we arrive... yikes...

Still looking for a home for border our kitty, for the year if you know of a good and lovin home!

Hope to see you sometime soon. And we pray that warm weather will come all of our ways!

We have JOBS!!! and we are MOVING!!!

So these last two weeks have been weeks of confusion, excitment, frustration, lots of prayer, trust and questioning... But exactly two weeks after we started this quest (we began march 9, sunday) the quest has come to a conclusion... We both have jobs, and we are moving...

It has long been on our minds, well mostly Mark's to move literally in this direction, but i have always had doubts and things holding me back from making this commitment, until 2 weeks ago. I dont know exactly what popped into my head or gave me this sudden urge to go for it, but after walking out of church on sunday I said mark, we need to do this before i change my mind. And literally within 10 minutes of walking in our door, Mark was on the phone making connections...

After two weeks of emails, applications, phone calls, and lots of questions, we got the conformation we needed... the school principle who will be watching over us this upcoming school year called and offered us jobs and we accepted on the spot!

Now you are probably like, okay get on with it, tell us where you are moving and teaching... Well, are you ready? Do you think you can handle it? Hope your sitting down, because i had too, i never thought this would happen.... drum roll please................



We are moving to SAIPAN!



A little island in the south pacific, near guam! We will be moving there August 1st and will be there roughly 10 months or so... depending on if God is calling us to stay longer or not... The temperture there is roughly 75 to 85 degrees year round, white sand beaches and beautiful.


We will be teaching at Saipan Community School which is a private christain school on the island, and it is english speaking. The student body is made up of mostly phillipeano and Koreans. Mark and I are sooooooo thrilled with this opportunity... We get to talk about Christ and pray in our classrooms!

Mark will be teaching junior high (grades 6-8) language arts... and i will be teaching the 3rd grade... The school is also located on the beach...Mark will walk downstairs to his classroom and i will walk across the parking lot!

They have an apartment ready for us, which is about 100 feet from sand and beautiful blue water... and we are ready to be there... however we are going to deeply miss our family and friends... but you know where to find us and we have a spare bedroom if you would like to come visit us...

Marks sister Suzanne taught here for one year and Mark had the chance to visit her there, so Mark knows completely what we are getting in for, and we are both sooooo excited! Praise God!

We are going to continue our young life ministry while on the island. We are going to try and begin wyld life, which is the junior high branch of young life...

Please be praying for us in the upcoming months, as we begin to say our goodbyes here in Kahlotus and Connell. Please pray that leaders will come to our ministry in young life in Connell and be willing to take over. Please pray mark's connections with the guys here in Kahlotus will still be as strong as when they started...Please pray for packing to go well and we decide what we want to take and leave behind... please pray for a safe home for my kitty, border... a home in which i can have him again when we return... hes my kid until we have one of our own =). And please pray for Gods guildance throughout this drastic change in our lives...

Here are some photos of the beautiful island we will be moving to that mark took while visiting....





Thank you in advance for your prayers... we are so excited for this opportunity... please stay in contact with us though, and if you want to get together before we head out August 1, please let us know, we want to spend as much time with family and friends as possible...

We will keep you posted as time goes on.....



WAHOOOOOOO SAIPAN HERE WE COME!

I have been Tagged....

Well, to be honest i didnt know there were "tag your it" games in the blogging world, but apparently i was incorrect... As i was just looking around my families blogs i decided to look at Angela's, my sister in-law, and read these 7 interesting facts... then i decided to check my own blog out and see when the last time i had written was. Much to my surprise Angela had tagged me. So here are my 7 interesting facts... but i dont know if they are that interesting...

The rules:
Link to your tagger and post these 3 rules on your blog.

1. Share 7 facts about yourself on your blog, some random, some weird.

2. Tag 7 people at the end of your post by leaving their names as well as links to their blogs.

3. Let them know they are tagged by leaving a comment on their blog.

Here goes!

1. I love eating canned Raviloi with Apple Sauce... I know gross, well i know thats what most people say when i eat it or they hear i like it. But to me it is soooo yummy. Its a mix between sweet and salty....

2. I am obssessed with reality shows - the bachelor, dance wars, top model, the newly weds.... i am actually watching the bachelor right now... kinda bumming though, i think there are more ditzy girls on this one then i have ever seen on any other...

3. I am addicted to Soda-pop. mostly coke or diet coke, but if you hand me one, i am likely to drink it. I try to keep it to one a day, and i usually succeed.

4. I am so excited to become a parent someday, but at the same time i am deathly affraid of it... just everything that comes with it... yikes. But i do love kiddos.

5. I am a clean freak. Now i dont mind it going a couple of days, but thats it... after that it is time for cleaning... and if i just cleaned it, like 3 min ago. dont mess it up!

6. I dont know how, and physically cant shuffle a deck of cards...

and 7. I LOVE GARLIC!! on bread, in pasta, on veggies, anything. I love garlic... i think mark is sick of it as this point... but i still love it! mmmmmmmmmm.

okay so there are 7 things about me that i find weird...

now i am going to tag......

Julie, My sister Julie, Tom my brother, and Suzanne my sister in law... i know it says tag 7, but i dont know very many people with a blog.... =)

Ta Ta for now!

Needed Prayers for the town of Kahlotus

Mark and I received news today that a former Kahlotus High School student, Kyle Bird, commited suicide today in his Kahlotus Home. Kyle graduated from Kahlotus HS a year before Mark was hired on. Kyle lived in Kahlotus for his entire life, as far as we know. Kyle was 20 years old.

Please be praying for Kyles family, the students of Kahlotus HS and the community. This has hit the community hard... Please also be praying for mark as he is going to have to deal with this tomorrow with students at school.

Thank you for your prayers.

-Brittany

Quilts for Sale!

Do you have old t-shirts and/or sweatshirts that hold special memories, and dont know what to do with them? Put them into a quilt.

I just wanted to let you know that i have recently started my own business in making memory quilts...

What i do is take your old fraternity/sorority or other event t-shirts/sweatshirts and make you a wonderful quilt out of them so you can have them for a lifetime of memories...

Mark and i both have one from Kappa Delta and Sigma Chi and love them!
Prices vary from sizes desired, but these are very affordable and fun to have!

let me know if you are interested and we can talk about them!

you can catch me on my cell at 509.879.1640 or email: Brittany_sawyer@hotmail.com

Below is a photo of my Kappa Delta quilt i made...

Hope to hear from you!

Happy 25th Birthday Marko!

Yesterday, January 21st we celebrated Marks 25th Birthday with simply relaxing and spending some time on the farm four-wheeling through the snow! Happy Birthday Honey!

Prayer Request

Just a quick prayer request... About 3 days ago we heard about a son stabbing his father in Bellingham, WA. And today we found out that the son was Brian Williams (24).

Brian, Mark and I grew up together at Ross Point Baptist Camp where Mark and I met...

They are saying that Brian's Father woke him up in the middle of the night to give him his medication. Brian had been a frequent user of drugs and had some emotional disorders, we never noticed them at camp, but we are guessing after high school is when they began to get worse. Anyway, his father woke him up to give him some medication and brian got mad or something and got in an argument with his father and then stabbed him. His mother then came into break it up and was stabbed.... His father passed away and is in satisfactory condition...

Brian has been charged with 2nd degree murder and 1st degree assult..

It is completely baffling to look at the photos of brian we have, even the one on the news and think that that is the same brian we knew, a fun and great guy...

Please be praying for his family, i believe he has 1 sister and 1 brother, and him mom... please be praying for Brian, we know he was/is a believer in God at one time, and this is definatly a time that he needs to be leaning on him!

If you are interested in seeing a picture of brian and reading more about what happened, you can go to google and type in Bellingham,WA news and then search Brian Williams, Father Stabbing...

Thanks so much for your prayers.